Study on Fungi-Bacteria Consortium Bioremediation of Petroleum Contaminated Mangrove Sediments Amended with Mixed Biosurfactants

Abstract

The co-culture of fungus-bacteria was used for the bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbon polluted mangrove sediment. The comparisons of single biosurfactant rhamonolipid and mixed biosurfactants (rhamonolipid and sophorolipid) added to enhance bioremediation were conducted in this study. The weight ratios of nC17/Pristane and nC18/Phytane were used as biomarker index in this study to monitor the progress of biodegradation progress of petroleum bioremediation test. The results revealed that the introduction of consortium of fungus-bacteria to petroleum hydrocarbons bioremediation was more efficient than the sum of the individual removal obtained in pure culture of fungus and bacteria. The introduction of rhamnolipid in bioremediation test of petroleum hydrocarbon in bioreactor E has higher removal of TPH than bioreactors of A, B, C, and D that without any biosurfactant added. And the result of bioreactor F demonstrated that the combination two different biosurfactant of rhamonolipid and sophorolipid provide a synergistic effects and lead to faster biodegradation than that added with single biosurfactant of rhamonolipid or sophorolipid in mangrove sediment. Conclusively, the combination of biostimulation and bioaugmentation approaches for petroleum bioremediation in mangrove sediment has achieved success in this study by co-culture of the fungus-bacteria amended with mixed biosurfactants, nutrients and aeration.